About the artist

Lives and works in Dusseldorf1958: Born in Zell am Hamersbach, DE1977-1985: National Academy of Arts, Düsseldorf

Thomas Ruff’s photography suggests the possibilities of his chosen
medium, as he might use digital manipulation for one subject and
antiquated darkroom techniques for another. Ruff works in series,
creating defined bodies of work whose subjects include empty domestic
interiors, appropriated interplanetary images captured by NASA,
abstractions of modernist architecture, three-dimensional
computer-generated Pop imagery, and obscured pornography. Ruff’s
portraiture series of the early 1980s (his first to receive critical
acclaim) featured groupings of large three-quarter portraits like so
many passport photos; their enlarged scale offered a startling level of
legibility. Though these, like many of his photographic series, seem to
beg a sociocultural interpretation, perhaps the most constant feature in
Ruff’s career is his disavowal of such a reading. Instead Ruff focuses
on aesthetics and process, building an eclectic oeuvre not defined by
genre, method, or theme, but rather by stark imagery, relative
conceptual seriality of subject, and the clever subversion of the
printed image.

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ARTWORKS

EXHIBITIONS

Past exhibitions

MAR 02 - MAY 20, 2013Group Exhibition

CONCRETE - Photography and ArchitectureFotomuseum Winterthur - Winterthur, Switzerland
Architectures and cities are both volumes and images alike. We experience them directly, physically and sensually, as well as through pictures. Pictures speak a language of their own. They offer a discourse that is quite unlike the physical experience of...

COLLECTION

Collection

Australia

National Gallery of AustraliaNGV National Gallery of VictoriaQueensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art

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